Uber & Postmates Partner to Enhance Customers' Experiences - Essay Sample

Uber was started in 2010 and is a system of services intended to meet public needs by opening up the world to new opportunities through movement. Postmates, on the other hand, serves to deliver highly demanded foodstuffs to customers in more than fifty states worldwide. These two platforms came together as reported on July 06, 2020, to provide more choice and convenience for end-users of the products, increase the willingness of this consumers to buy and tailored technology giveaways for eateries and new jobs for the delivery personnel (Lozano et al., 2013). After the approval of this transaction by the board of directors of both companies, Postmates is now highly dependent on Uber Eats with an ultimate differentiated focused locations, or the customer residing areas and Postmates' strongest points with a smaller and average eateries particularly those that draw consumers to Postmates branded products. This study will attempt to discover an in depth understanding of the merge between Uber and Postmates.

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Following this transaction, Postmates and Uber will jointly offer a variety of tools and technical know-how with ease and connect to a large number of end-product users with minimal cost hence reduction in their expenditure. Consumers on their side will be advantaged with this initiative as they will have expanded their choices across a broader vast of products from different restaurants and dealers. Delivery personnel, on the other hand, will be benefitted as their jobs are likely to increase, which in turn will increase their income

According to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber and Postmates have a firm belief that the merging of this to platforms can do the powering for more services. This merge can be of a significant boost to local commercial activities and communities at large. It is also essential in reducing the number of infections during such crisis such as coronavirus pandemic as it discourages people from meeting in eateries and thus reducing the risk of being infected in these places (Lozano et al., 2013). On the same note, Postmate’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Bastian Lehmann said that the two allies are working together aiming to give the best practices across the industry especially for couriers and thus will trigger the growth of the sectors from within which in turn will benefit everyone in their areas of service concern (Lozano et al., 2013).

According to Kamath et al. (2005), Online order of goods is rapidly rising globally. This is because of the end-users of these goods are in most cases are overcommitted and thus lacks time to pick these products directly from the dealers. One of such commonly ordered items is perishable as well as ready-made foodstuffs. Postmates takes orders placed by their customers and assigns Uber the responsibility of bridging the gap between them and their consumers).

For food delivery success, its factors and metrics should be taken into consideration. Such emerging factors include: consideration for profit challenges for the previous mile in the distribution chain, reducing as much as possible the higher costs of consumer acquisition, creating and developing a well-integrated application (Smith, 2016). This will allow for order placement at any time of the day from any given geographical area. Its success is also determined by choosing an effective delivery system, creating an easily recognizable positive brand and establishing an appealing user free basis (Smith, 2016). This will draw more consumers to order for products dealt on by the company (Smith, 2016)

Risks and uncertainties are any business’ future expectations. This merge, therefore, is no exception from this. Actual outcomes may vary in the material when compared to the forecasted results, and these predicted outcomes should not be taken to be a clear suggestion of forthcoming outcome. Future statements are all non-historical and can be identified in such terms as “anticipate,” “believe,” “contemplate,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “hope,” “intend,” “may,” “might,” “objective,” “ongoing,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “target,” “will,” or “would” or similar expressions and the opposites of this terms (Ciulli & Kolk, 2019). This statement gathers for both known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other determinants of the material achievement in future as per forward-looking statements.

These risks and uncertainties, among others, include failure to obtain or delays in obtaining necessary regulatory approvals failure to which will hinder with the expected outcomes of the transaction. It also includes failure to follow the terms and conditions dictated by the deal on the required time or at all. Failure to realize the forecasted outputs as proposed by the transaction on time or at all also poses a risk (Ciulli & Kolk, 2019). If the companies even fail to follow proper litigation procedures, changes in such regulatory actions put the companies in jeopardy of its operations being brought to an end (Ciulli & Kolk, 2019).

Consumers at the other end also suffer the delivery risk. According to Boussier et al. (2011) delivery risk refers to the chance that the counterparty may not fail to fulfil his/her side of the delivery agreement by not delivering the ordered assert or cash value of the contract. Food safety must be a concern of every eatery. This becomes important for the delivery because of the additional risk. Delivery risks come in various forms and include slips or fall accidents which are too familiar, the degree of product wellness to be conveyed from one area to another, the commitment of your drivers to delivery work as others may be lured of delicious bites, the suitability of the product to the container it is being conveyed on and trustworthiness of your drivers in comparison with the product they are delivering.

To avoid all this, a risk assessment should be done before delivering the ordered goods. Such conditions which should be considered during risk assessment include; who to be hired, which courier to be used, the routes to be followed, and the trustworthiness of the hired individual. Risk assessment, therefore, tracks this order of steps. First, one should identify the possible hazards that are likely to be encountered on the delivering process, then decide on who will possibly be harmed and in which way that harm will exhibit itself on the harmed, evaluation of this possible risks then follows (Henley & Kumamoto, 1996). This comes hand in hand with the decision on the precautions which should be taken in case the evaluated risk occurs. This should then be followed by a recording of the findings and their implementation. Lastly, one should review his/her assessment and make any updates if there be a necessity (Henley & Kumamoto, 1996).

Risk management should be taken into consideration to complete the risk assessment process. This according to Rasmussen (1982) it refers to an act which triggers recognition of risk, its assessment and development of methods to manage and overcome using managerial resources. The plans include; transferring the risk to another person, taking another way of doing what you wanted to do which is risk-free, minimizing the unfavorable impacts of the risk, and accepting some or all of the outcomes posed by the threat. Risk management aims to reduce non-similar risks related to a selected level domain to a generally accepted level. It can be looked at various types of warnings brought about by the environment, advancements in technology, beings, organizations or politics. Risks with most substantial loss and more possibilities of occurring are given a first priority, and hazards with lower probability of occurrence and more moderate loss are controlled in descending order.

There exist a lot of benefits from merging of one or more companies. Such is likely to be experienced by both Uber and Postmates resulting from their merge. Mergers enable companies to deal with the threat of multinationals and expand their markets to international level (Lozano et al. 2013) The two companies (Uber and Postmates) are likely to encounter the same in the course of their operations. Merges also allows greater investments because the new firm will have more profit which can be used as investments in risky businesses.

It can better the quality of goods for end-users (Humphrey et al., 2016). Merges also can protect the firms from any possible cause that can lead to its closure. This can result from financing such possible causes using the increased amount of profits realized from their merge. Sharing of knowledge will also be witnessed from the merge of firms (Shang & Seddon, 2002). This, in turn, will allow for diversification of knowledge that will positively affect the output of the same firms. Economies of scale are also likely to be experienced from this merge (Smith, 2016). This is because of increased outputs that reduce average cost, which in turn lower prices for the consumers.

To ensure the efficiency and successfulness of this merge, both uber and postmasters board of directors should meet to discuss the above risks and risk assessment procedures to realize the benefits of the two firms merging a virtual restaurant which is as per the delivery standards (Whitney, 2018). Research has shown that uber eats has more than 1600 virtual restaurants worldwide. In association with Posmates therefore, these markets are likely to rise higher since they will combine their customers under the same brand variety of products (Ghauri & Hassan, 2014).

In conclusion, merging of these companies favors for their expansion as they will have a variety of market for their product. It will also benefit the community they serve significantly since it will provide job opportunities to drivers who will be hired to do the delivery service. The same community will also have a benefit of obtaining a variety of products they can order from one source at any time of the day and expect deliveries to their areas of residence

References

Boussier, J. M., Cucu, T., Ion, L., & Breuil, D. (2011). Simulation of goods delivery process. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 41(9), 913-930. https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mcb/005/2011/00000041/00000009/art00006

Ciulli, F., & Kolk, A. (2019). Incumbents and business model innovation for the sharing economy: Implications for sustainability. Journal of cleaner production, 214, 995-1010. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652618340253

Ghauri, P., & Hassan, I. (2014). Evaluating companies for mergers and acquisitions. Emerald Group Publishing. Whitney Filloon, Eater, October 24, 2018, www.eater.com/2018/10/24/18018334/ubereats-virtual-restaurants

Henley, E. J., & Kumamoto, H. (1996). Probabilistic risk assessment and management for engineers and scientists. IEEE Press (2nd Edition). http://www.ieee.org/ns/mganet/mbb/October_2012_WNFS.html

Humphrey, R. H., Burch, G. F., & Adams, L. L. (2016). The benefits of merging leadership research and emotions research. Frontiers in psychology, 7, 1022. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01022/full

Kamath, S., Hom, T., & Lee, A. (2005). U.S. Patent No. 6,970,838. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. https://patents.google.com/patent/US6970838B1/en

Lozano, S., Moreno, P., Adenso-Díaz, B., & Algaba, E. (2013). Cooperative game theory approach to allocating benefits of horizontal cooperation. European Journal of Operational Research, 229(2), 444-452. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221713001677